Gardening Keeps You Fit

30 percent of people who live in the United States are considered obese. Compare that with 3.2 percent in Korea and Japan. In Canada, the number of obese people is half the number that it is in this country. It's no secret that obesity has become the nation's number one killer. It's also not hard to fathom the fact that obesity costs money. People in the United States spend $125 billion in extra health care and diet books. And, yet, we grow fatter by the year.

A study of the Pima Indians in Arizona tells us much of what happens when you take away farming and introduce white flour and lard into a diet. People get fat. And they develop heart disease and diabetes. When the Pimas lived off the land, they were healthy and thin. After WWII, a damn was built to capture water for Phoenix. That meant the land the Pima farmed dried up. They began starving. Enter the humanitarians who shipped in tons of lard and white flour. 60 years later you would be hard pressed to find a thin person on this reservation which is, incidentally, about the size of Connecticut.

Of course, genetics also plays a role. The same genes that help people like the Pima survive times of scarcity play a large role in packing on the pounds during times of plenty. They probably also have another gene which makes them more prone to diabetes. But what happened to the Pima population and how quickly it occurred certainly underscores the importance of teaching our children to make healthy choices at the table and in terms of physical activity. I think growing fruits and vegetables with our kids is a great way to start.